When I last crunched the numbers for the 2017 individual market in Arizona, the average requested rate hike statewide was a whopping 68%. However, that was before Aetna dropped their bombshell about dropping out of the exchanges in 11 states (AZ included), leaving about 6,400 residents receiving ACA tax credits in Pinal County with no subsidized policy options whatsoever.
Since Aetna had intended on requesting a jaw-dropping 85.8% average rate hike if they had stuck around, this technically meant that the average requested hike for the other carriers would have dropped somewhat, although this would be limited by Aetna only having about 7% of the individual market in the state.
Since then there have been two major changes: First, Aetna, which had been planning on entering the Maine ACA exchange, infamously pulled a complete 180 and not only decided not to expand, but actually pulled out of the exchange in most of the states they're already in. This doesn't really impact Maine since they were only available off-exchange anyway. The second change does, however: Several of the carriers submitted revised requests, pushing the average up higher, to 23.9%.
Community Health Options, a Lewiston-based health insurance cooperative, has gotten approval to withdraw from the New Hampshire insurance market in 2017.
The plan was approved this week by the Maine Bureau of Insurance, which has been monitoring CHO’s finances as it tries to recover from a $31 million loss in 2015. The nonprofit cooperative has set aside more than $45 million in reserves to try to avoid another big loss this year.
I appear to have something of a semi-exclusive here, if only because the Florida DOI isn't formally posting these documents on their website until tomorrow due ot the holiday weekend:
Office Announces 2017 PPACA Individual Market Health Insurance Plan Rates to Increase 19% on Average
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation announced today that premiums for Florida individual major medical plans in compliance with the federal Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (PPACA) will increase an average of 19% beginning January 1, 2017. Per federal guidelines, a total of 15 health insurance companies submitted rate filings for the Office’s review in May. These rate filings consisted of individual major medical plans to be sold both on and off the Exchange. Following the Office’s rate filing review, the average approved rate changes on the Exchange range from a low of -6% to a high of 65%. This information can be located in the attached “Individual PPACA Market Monthly Premiums for Plan Year 2017*” document.
Regular readers know that I used to regularly post an entry about the official CMS Medicaid enrollment reports every month, documenting the increase in Medicaid enrollment since ACA expansion went into effect. The numbers were increasing dramatically every month for nearly two years, but started slowing down last fall as most of the expansion states started maxing out on their eligible enrollees.
As of November 2015, there had been a net increase of 14.1 million people added to the Medicaid rolls since October 2013 (the month when ACA expansion enrollment began), plus another 950,000 people who had already been quietly transferred over to Medicaid from existing, state-funded programs prior to 2013 via other ACA provisions. I sort of forgot to post about the reports for awhile, but checked back in again for the May report, released back in July.
Over at the National Review, Michael "King v. Burwell" Cannon of the CATO Institute and self-described Obamacare-slayer has penned a piece which tears into the ACA over the situation in Pinal County, Arizona, where, barring a last-minute development, several thousand residents are about to find themselves in a pretty unpleasant situation when it comes to finding a new healthcare policy for 2017. As I noted last week:
Pinal County won’t have a company offering marketplace health insurance plans next year following the nation’s third-largest health insurer’s decision to exit public exchanges in all but four states.
Aetna was the only insurer planning to offer Affordable Care Act plans in Pinal County for 2017. It currently only sells in Maricopa County but had planned to expand to Pinal County.
More than 75,000 Iowans will see their insurance premiums rise next year.
Iowa Insurance Commissioner Nick Gerhart has approved rate increases sought by four companies who provide health insurance in the state, Gerhart's agency announced Monday. The increases include plans covered by Wellmark Blue Cross & Blue Shield, the state's dominant health insurer.
However, the article was a little vague about some of the data, so I visited the IA DOI website and sure enough, they have separate entries for every one of the carriers (with one exception):
A week or so ago, I attempted to tally up the number of current ACA exchange enrollees who will have to shop around for a new policy this fall whether they want to or not, due to their current plan being discontinued. As a reminder, there are three main reasons for this: a) the carrier is pulling out of the exchange in their county/state (Aetna, Humana, UnitedHealthcare); b) the carrier is going out of business entirely (4 co-ops); or c) the carrier will still have policies available but is dropping the one they're enrolled in (mainly PPOs).
In addition to the 1.69 million estimate from Aetna, UnitedHealthcare, Humana and the 4 Co-Ops which are shutting down in CT, OH, IL and OR, we can also add the following (thanks to Louise Norris for the assist on some of these):
Two weeks ago, on August 14th, I officially concluded my requested 2017 rate hike project. I've since gone back and made some adjustments to various states where carriers have either pulled out of the individual market or resubmitted revised rate hike requests, but I had enough preliminary data from all 50 states (+DC) to come to some initial conclusions.
I sorted out the states by three different criteria, looking for any noteworthy patterns: Federal vs. State-Based Exchanges; Transitional Policies allowed vs. NO Transitional Policies; and whether or not the state has expanded Medicaid under the ACA (whether "standard" Medicaid or via a custom waiver version, like Arkansas, Indiana and New Hampshire did).
My conclusion at the time was that there wasn't enough of a distinction in either of the first two criteria to draw any conclusions...but as for Medicaid expansion, I said:
Over at Politico, Rachana Pradhan and Paul Demko have an interesting article speculating on the potential for the ACA-as-a-GOP-campaign-issue to spring back to life again due to the one-two punch of major carriers dropping out of the exchanges and significant rate hikes being imposed for the 2017 Open Enrollment period. The fact that #OE4 kicks off (November 1st) just 1 week before election day (November 8th) adds some fuel to this thinking:
The potential sticker shock — coupled with the likelihood many consumers will have fewer choices next year after major insurers scale back their exchange participation — creates a potential political opening for Republican candidates, especially since the next Obamacare enrollment season starts one week before Election Day.
